


Gestern, Heute, und Morgen

by curlycomfort



Category: Dark (TV 2017)
Genre: Gen, Hopeful Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-08
Updated: 2020-07-08
Packaged: 2021-03-04 20:09:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,244
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25142164
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/curlycomfort/pseuds/curlycomfort
Summary: Michael began detaching from the person that was Mikkel when he continued growing, becoming the man that his father would've wished to see, in the future. He wouldn't miss that, though, Ulrich talked to him every now and then, cordial, but detached.His son wasn't a child anymore.Would he be sad that he didn't become the greatest magician out there?-From Mikkel Nielsen, to Michael Kahnwald.
Relationships: Ines Kahnwald/Michael Kahnwald | Mikkel Nielsen, Jonas Kahnwald & Michael Kahnwald | Mikkel Nielsen
Comments: 11
Kudos: 69





	Gestern, Heute, und Morgen

**Author's Note:**

> Just a little idea I wanted to write!
> 
> If you have anything you'd like to read about revolving this, I'd be glad to write it.

It was like the world knew that Mikkel wasn't meant to be there. In humanity's eyes, he was just an odd boy. 

_The new boy is not like us. He's strange. He doesn't talk about our music. Whenever someone else does that, he just seems confused._

_Last week he tried to show me a magic trick._

_You too? It's like he doesn't know what else to do! He walks like a clueless idiot._

It seemed too, that the world thought that he couldn't hear what others said. Their laughter followed him like the plague. Mikkel didn't know what was worse, that, or the whispers that accused him endlessly.

The only person that managed to quieten the whispers was Nurse Ines. _You can call me Ines._ Her gentle voice nudged back.

Okay... maybe not just her. Although, Hannah didn't silence the whispers, she didn't mind his tricks.

-

Routine helped him find some stability in his new senseless world, so when the day came that a change happened, he would find himself thinking about the Winden caves, wondering if it was finally time to go home. Like those birds that fell from the sky, an anomaly in nature that one could only stop and look at.

Nurse Ines hadn't been there when he woke up, always a quarter before eight, because she clocked in to her shift at a quarter before nine, so they had enough time to have breakfast together. He'd yet to be admitted in school seeing as he had absolutely no paperwork, and the police database had come empty with any disappearance reports. It was futile to interrogate him -he rarely talked unless he was alone with Ines, so people just ended up assuming that he was traumatized and had a wash of memory to block out whatever traumatic event that had happened before he stumbled into town.

Better being thought of as traumatized than _crazy,_ although their assessment wasn't half wrong, he was traumatized to a certain degree.

So Ines' absence implied that she could've had an emergency call from the hospital -which he was inclined to not believe as that same situation had happened a few times before and she had always, _always_ , left a note for him- at an earlier hour, or... she finally realized that he was too odd to have stay in her home and was fixing up a new arrangement for him.

He did not expect to gaze down at an empty file, listing out personal information to fill out. Nurse Ines had gently slid it to him. She reminded him of that dog whisperer he'd seen on TV, coaxing the dog with slow movements to make sure the animal understood that there was no harm coming for them.

Down on the left corner was her name and signature.

"What's this?" Mikkel asked, although he'd already read the objective of the papers. He just felt that repeating it out loud could make it a little more real.

"I want you to stay with me." Nurse Ines replied, gaze soft and full of honesty. Mikkel wished he'd learned more about Jonas' family, seeing as the nurse was the only one with that same last name. He wasn't even sure if he'd ever crossed paths with the woman either. He supposed it made interacting with her a little easier. There was no conscience to hold about the future selves of every single person in town.

Had his presence already changed the future? Was Winden's history slightly, or enormously, changed by his appearance in town alone?

Mikkel delicately took the paper in his hands, picking at the slightly folded corner of the page. The fold was too minuscule, and it bugged him more than it should've.

When he didn't say anything for five minutes, Ines stood up, smoothing out her uniform as she always did, then gathering her chair to pull it up next to his. Her near presence eased his nerves a little, the smell of clothing softener and perfume a comforting parallel to the scent he used to associate with his mother. She wasn't there to comfort him anymore, neither his Papa. Both liked to nudge him aside without a glance back. He was nobody to them.

And he was somehow a lot of things for Ines even if he remained as mysterious as when he first arrived.

"Since this case was a little atypical in the adoption-" _Adoption._ His mind echoed. "-process. We've been given permission to register you under whichever name you'd like. It can be changed if memory comes back to you about your identity and well..." She trailed off a little, the first signs of hesitation morphing her expression. Her mouth formed invisible words, and then she was smoothing out her dress over her lap, gazing away. "You are a very good child, and you've gained a place in my heart. I can provide you a home, education, anything that you need, dear boy. You don't have to decide now, it's just a first possibility."

Mikkel nodded in understanding, although it was more of an unconscious action, mind far away from the situation. He swung his legs over the edge of the chair, a way to eject the pent up anxiousness within him. The longing to go home, the uneasiness of being stuck indefinitely in the wrong place.

No, the wrong _time._

"Okay." His reply caught Ines' attention, who slid a pen into his hold.

Had he knowledge of what would happen after that? After he signed the papers? Was his past an open book that he'd been blind to all this time?

Did his life, the way he knew it, even exist anymore?

In the end, together, they filled out the empty slots. The notion should've brought him comfort, but he just felt dread drag down to the pit of his stomach. His body caught on to the answers of his questions way long before him, he would realize after. What he'd confused as dread would be an absolute revelation of what it meant, now that he became someone in WInden.

_Name: MICHAEL_

_Last Name: KAHNWALD_

Tucked in the comfort of his new bed, Mikkel let himself cry for the first time since he'd stepped out of the caves.

There would be no way back home.

-

Sometimes, _Michael_ would stare at people, a lot. Not everyone, of course, but rather those that would become the familiarity of home in the future. He could see Mama Katharina in that angry face that pushed him against the locker.

He could see Papa in the rebelious boy that skipped classes to smoke and hang out with his mother.

And he had very few encounters with Jonas' mother, Hannah, in the future, but he could perceive something familiar in the way she scrunched up her features.

"Three and six. You lose again, _Houdini_."

Michael's neutral face didn't react to the sixth loss in a row he'd obained in Hannah's invented game. It couldn't really be called a game though, they only had two dice to play with, so she came up with the idea of rolling and seeing who obtained the biggest summed number.

"I don't like this game." He admitted, but still picked up the cubes, rolling them in his hand in preparation for the next game.

"That's because you _lose_ a lot." Hannah teased in a sing song voice, and both children observed the turn and bounce each dice gave until settling on the ground.

"One and two, tough luck." She picked up the stick they used to write on the dirt and erased the number written under his name in the score box. "You have thirty three points, Kahnwald."

-

Mikkel slipped up with his name, plenty of times.

Normally he would be a talker, but he quickly learned that being quiet got rid of people's curiosity over someone.

He eventually stopped being novelty in town, but that didn't meant they stopped thinking he was weird.

-

The first class picture he ever took in Winden, 1987, he only ever saw once.

He wondered if people in the future would ever make that connection, or if he would fade for the wrong reason.

A lot of people fade for the wrong reasons, he thought, and yet life still went on.

-

Ines never asked him what he meant back at the hospital.

 _I come from the future_.

And she didn't ask either when he called her Mama for the first time and he cried. It was an accident, but the shock appeared soon after, followed by an intense clutch of sadness over his heart. When she hugged him, Michael closed his eyes and thought it was Mama Katharina the one holding him. He was so wrong, he was being so unfair to Ines.

It eventually became easier. After all, Ines and Katharina were very different, if only they shared the motherly love they regarded him with.

-

The years crawled by, and he was getting so close to where he used to be. 

Some would say he was wasting his time, longing for something that couldn't happen anymore, he wasn't the one that belonged in the Nielsen family anymore.

Ulrich and Katharina softened with the wisdom of adulthood. The anger in their eyes vanished.

Michael painted a couple of portraits. But those he stored in his secret spot.

-

It wasn't that he didn't love Hannah, he dreamed of marrying her soon enough.

He just tried not to think of the absolute reality of his life.

The present people currently lived was set to happen, even if a young boy traveled back in time and inserted himself in the wrong place. Except it wasn't the wrong place, it was where he was meant to be in order to build the future he remembered.

His end was the beginning of others.

The pain caused by his absence was an indisputable reality, but also a cruel play from time.

They didn't know that their _dear son Mikkel_ was with them all along, and they had already lived with him much more than they thought.

-

He technically knew everything that would happen, not that he ever did try to warn others. There was something gratifying about knowing the outcome of the story, except his own. He felt as though he didn't have a free will in what happened with the Kahnwald family.

Jonas was one of the friends he missed the most, but now it meant something different. He wasn't sure what were his feelings towards it. Maybe the shock never truly left his mind.

_Ultimate fistbump?_

_Mikkel, run!_

-

Michael began detaching from the person that was Mikkel when he continued growing, becoming the man that his father would've wished to see, in the future. He wouldn't miss that, though, Ulrich talked to him every now and then, cordial, but detached.

His son wasn't a child anymore.

Would he be sad that he didn't become the greatest magician out there?

-

Michael would then also discover that making love was one way to forget everything tormenting his mind for one blissful moment.

The warmth of another person against his own, movements increasing with the growth of a heat deep within them. His mind was too busy thinking what to do next, thinking of how warm Hannah's kisses made him feel inside, how he wasn't alone right then and there, and when he finally slid inside her, halting for one breathless moment, his mind settled for a moment in one thought.

 _Maybe that is where he truly_ _belonged._

He willed away the tears threatening to fall, lacing his hand with hers while they gently rocked together.

-

Michael sometimes painted furiously, the strokes of his brush harsh, the idea on his canvas a shout into the void.

Most of his art pieces didn't make sense.

-

They were going to have a child, a son, Hannah told him.

Age had helped Michael run down his pent up emotions, but that ugly panic resurface at times. _What if he wasn't meant to stay there? What if he really screwed up everything? What if he was the imposter?_

If it was true, their son would end up being Jonas. If it was true, if life really intended for him to live that life, the name would happen on its own, and the circle would close, the snake would bite into its tail.

 _The ouroboros_.

As the months crawled by, and they eventually reached the topic of names, Michael merely shrugged, pretended to seem sheepish while justifying "I'm very bad at names."

He chewed on the inside of his cheek when he asked for her ideas. Hannah's smile always made him feel good inside, but not this time. He couldn't be at ease until he assessed for sure.

"Jonas. I like the name. What do you think?" Tears sprung in his eyes, and he barely managed a nod, murmuring an _I love it, it's perfect,_ while hugging his wife close.

"What brought this up?" She asked, with a gentle laugh.

_"I'm the happiest I could ever be."_

-

There was a very good reason to stay now. It was a compromise he made with whatever had decided to take him away from 2019.

It wasn't the Jonas he was used to, so small and fragile, needing to be held while his unsteady little legs attempted to take him in stride for the first time.

But that was okay.

He could smile for days with the echo of his joyous laugh.


End file.
